A Quote by Kenneth E. Boulding
It is much more accurate to identify the factors of production as know-how (that is genetic information structure), energy, and materials, for, as we have seen, all processes of production involve the direction of energy by some know-how structure toward the selection, transportation, and transformation of materials into the product
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Surveying the available alternative energy sources for criteria such as energy density, environmental impacts, reliance on depleting raw materials, intermittency versus constancy of supply, and the percentage of energy returned on the energy invested in energy production, none currently appears capable of perpetuating this kind of society.
Energy is the master resource, because energy enables us to convert one material into another. As natural scientists continue to learn more about the transformation of materials from one form to another with the aid of energy, energy will be even more important.
The good news is that we've seen in recent years significant reductions in the cost of solar panels and wind production. We know how significant an impact we can have by moving towards energy efficiency and transforming our transportation system. So we know what has to be done. We have to develop the political will to do it, and, as president, this would be an issue of huge concern to me.
The way to improve productivity is not to bring in experts to talk about inputs - seed, equipment and materials, pesticides or water supply. The way to start is to provide an assured market, a fair price, and a system through which rural producers can market their produce which is reasonably efficient and can transfer to them the maximum share of the consumers' money. If such a structure is erected, the producers will then seek the inputs and materials they need to increase their production and productivity.
Bitumen is junk energy. A joule, or unit of energy, invested in extracting and processing bitumen returns only four to six joules in the form of crude oil. In contrast, conventional oil production in North America returns about 15 joules. Because almost all of the input energy in tar sands production comes from fossil fuels, the process generates significantly more carbon dioxide than conventional oil production.
Cities are magical things. You know the energy in them. You have to walk the streets in any borough here and you can see between what was in this city in the 1970's and where it is today and how much more energy there is and how much more just sheer.
If you ask what you are going to do about global warming, the only rational answer is to change the way in which we do transportation, energy production, agriculture and a good deal of manufacturing. The problem originates in human activity in the form of the production of goods.
Falsehood is difficult to be maintained. When the materials of a building are solid blocks of stone, very rude architecture will suffice; but a structure of rotten materials needs the most careful adjustment to make it stand at all.
Design is important. I spend much of my working life as a designer. But how can you design for materials if you don't know what they can do? The feel of them, the possibilities, the capabilities? These are things you learn only by working with materials all the time. Frankly, a university degree is not much help in that.
I think the best and perhaps only sensible policy for the future is to prepare society for change and be prepared to adjust. In 25 years, we'll have a world with some 9 to 10 billion people that will require twice as much primary energy as today. We must embrace new science and technology in a more positive way than we presently do in Europe. This includes, for example, nuclear energy and genetic food production to provide the world what it urgently needs.
There are lots of cases where we know more about how the world works than we do about how we know how it works. That's no paradox. Understanding the structure of galaxies is one thing, understanding how we understand the structure of galaxies is quite another. There isn't the slightest reason why the first should wait on the second and, in point of historical fact, it didn't. This bears a lot of emphasis; it turns up in philosophy practically everywhere you look.
Energy, health care and education are just three examples of areas in which information and information management are critically important. How are we using our energy? What appliances in homes or business are consuming the most energy? When do they consume it? Can the load be shifted? How efficient are these devices?
In the past few decades, there has been a revolution in how we perceive the body. What appears to be an object, a three-dimensional anatomical structure, is actually a process, a constant flow of energy and information.
I am very sure that my children thrive on structure and need boundaries. I know my children need to know what time they are going to bed or how many more minutes until they are leaving for school, and so I have imposed a structure that allows them to know where they are all day long, every day in life.
Jazz and poetry both involve a structure that may be familiar and to some extent predictable. And then, you try to create as much surprise and spontaneity and feeling and variation while respecting that structure.
We are already witnessing a transformation in the U.S. economy to increased production of lower carbon energy through fuel switching to natural gas and expansion of wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewable non-carbon intensive energy sources.
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